Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Apuí fire, 26 July 2019 Apuí

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2019, 05:17 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2019 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 199th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 548 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
4,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
26 Jul 2019 – 7 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Jul
2019
Heat detections
321
in a single hotspot: 167 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul7 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

262728293031123467

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,298 ha in 2017, 2,357 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,566 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    4,481 ha reached on 26 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
26 Jul 38.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 37.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jul 37.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul 36.3 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jul 37.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul 38.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug 37.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Aug 38.0 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug 37.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Aug 34.9 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 34.5 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug 35.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Aug 34.4 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
8 Aug after 35.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug after 37.0 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug after 37.9 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 38.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug after 39.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug after 39.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Aug after 38.8 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Aug after 35.4 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug after 34.3 °C 49 % 37 km/h 6.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 19 Jul 2019
After · 14 Aug 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 321Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Apuí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2019 and 7 August 2019: 13 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,459 hectares (44.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (4,481 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Brazil (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 193

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 193.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.